12 Oct 2017

Russell Maltz: Painted/Stacked/Suspended

Minus Space

Reviewed by William Corwin

Maltz prompts that obsessive fixation on detail that is usually aroused through the consumption of psilocybe cubensis. Ultra-simple assemblages of wooden forms such as STACK - Safety Yellow (1985), a pile of standard plywood sheets, draws the eye to the play of radiant, pure yellow pigment as it weaves through the grain of the wood and over its buckles and splinters.

The angles of these planes against the wall impresses itself on the consciousness because Maltz has deftly and poetically limited the parameters of what the viewer is allowed to perceive. His Needle series (all 2017) are sets of three or four long shards of painted plywood which hang from a single peg, but as the eye tracks down the wall, gravity dissolves and they seem to float above the floor. These geometric koans offer a lesson in Impressionism - shadows passing over colors noticeably transform their hue, and rough and smooth wooden edges dip into abstraction despite their blatant banality.